


Building Dreams

by Grotesgi



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - The Handmaid's Tale Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Mech Preg (Transformers), Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grotesgi/pseuds/Grotesgi
Summary: In a world where every carrier is a rare commodity, turning out as one is called anhonorby some and anightmareby others, but it's what the twins are thrust into all the same. Now all that's left is navigating their new reality to the best of their ability.
Relationships: Sideswipe & Sunstreaker (Transformers)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25





	1. Origins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the tags say, this is hopelessly inspired by The Handmaid's Tale that a friend got me to watch. Mind you, I haven't even gotten past the third episode of the first season yet, because instead of focusing on the show my mind instantly jumps to this. So I had to write a little thing for it. That I really shouldn't be writing before I've finished some of my other works, but here I am anyway, so. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, what I originally posted of this work is now the second chapter, just fyi.

They snuck inside, hoping the actual owner of the apartment was too deep in a high grade induced stupor to notice their arrival—or their departure once they’d done what they came here for.

It was nothing illegal, really. This wasn’t officially their place of residence anymore—their room in the Pits was—but it was owned by their commissioner. That legal binding hadn’t been broken yet.

But would be soon, hopefully. There was nothing about this place or this mech they wanted any ties to. They were nearing the one event that inevitably led to a mech’s legal independence, anyway. It was just a matter of time before the mech in the living room of the tiny apartment could lay no claim on them.

Not that he particularly had at any point of their lives.

_ “–Lord Megatron of Kaon was once again caught in a heated debate with Optimus Prime of Iacon at the publicized Council meeting. We’ve all heard the arguments on both sides a million times, haven’t we?” _ the entertainment screen droned on, the channel turned to some manner of talk show. What a waste of time.

But that was all their commissioner did or had ever done, wasted his time away. The chair he was currently sitting in had its back turned to the open door into the hallway, and the brothers used that as an advantage to the best of their ability. They weren’t built for stealth and silence, who here was, but with the volume of the show turned up so high, it should mask the sounds they made pretty well.

Like always.

_ “Carriers this and carriers that—as you’re all well aware of, Optimus Prime is still campaigning for the demolition of the Housing system. What should be established in its stead? Equality for all? How does that help our species? No, he doesn’t have a replacement plan! As always, Lord Megatron called him out on this, and in a surprise move, Lord Starscream of Vos actually backed him up. Imagine that, the two of them united in something! For a mated pair they sure argue a lot—and if that’s in public, how much worse is it in private?” _ Laughter from the screen, both from the host and the audience present in the studio. Sideswipe huffed to himself, only to get glared at by Sunstreaker. Yeah yeah, keep quiet. Get the last of their things from their  _ old  _ room and beat it the pit out of here before their commissioner ever got any wiser they’d even visited.

It was kind of funny, though, how easily you could tell you were in Kaon just based on the kind of entertainment that was aired. It wasn’t that there was never anything critical of Megatron, but in this one thing most of Kaon seemed to agree with their leader, and thought the Prime was nothing but a bumbling dumbling. 

Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker by extension? Or whoever was the extension of who or if it was just the In-Between,  _ anyway, _ they stayed out of politics. That was a thing that only brought more stress on you when you needed to argue with anyone who had differing opinions to your own. So tiresome, no thanks on that.

Although he could kinda agree the Prime was a little dumb. At least the things he said were dumb. And the whole scandal with his so-called  _ mate… _ Yeah, there was something just  _ wrong  _ with that mech. What the pit even drove him to these things?

Alright, end of opinions, right there, or else he’d find himself a political activist or something. Dumb Prime, Megatron calling him out on it, the end. 

What mattered more than the artificially created problems Cybertron had—really, why do anything about a good thing that  _ worked  _ already?—was them and their little life. Maybe it didn’t matter to anyone else, but that was what life was about. Taking care of yourself, standing up for yourself, making it out there in the cold, cruel world… Or something like that.

He liked to think they’d gotten pretty far already, as Sunstreaker opened the squeaky door to their old room as quietly as he could. Once it was parted enough that they could fit through, they stopped to listen—but there were still just the sounds of the show, nothing from the third occupant of the place.  _ “So they’re there, both trying to sway the Council, Optimus jabbering on about ‘freedom is the right of all sentient beings’ or something like that—did you stay awake listening to him? I sure didn’t. And Megatron comes in and points out the obvious: we need the breeders! Where are you going to get a newspark from otherwise? Out of thin air? By miracle of Primus? ‘Hey, big guy downstairs, would you be so kind as to send me a newspark, I really need one’? Not happening, is that?” _

Alright, so what had they still left behind? There was Sunstreaker’s old art pads and art books on equally old datapads. They were carefully picked up and subspaced while Sideswipe quietly opened the subspace containers embedded in the walls and made sure nothing was going to get left behind. Some of the stuff they were taking and had taken with them was nothing but junk that they threw out to the nearest trash chute, but dammit their commissioner wasn’t about to get  _ any  _ of it, junk or not. 

It was the principle of things. These were things they’d acquired on their own, with  _ their  _ credits or  _ their  _ wiliness. They belonged to  _ them  _ and no one else. 

Unless someone picked them up from the junk piles on the lower decks, but if a mech was crazy enough to wade through that mess, then pits, they had deserved whatever they found.

But really, most of these things just weren’t worth anything.

Once he’d checked through all of their containers and Sunstreaker had looted their secret stashes—because sometimes that was the only way to keep more valuable things from  _ addicts _ —they slipped from the room as carefully as they’d come in.

Or thought they did. In the gloom of the hallway, there were two red optics staring at them. Sunstreaker froze in place the same Sideswipe did.

“Are you leaving?” their commissioner asked quietly, voice a little staticky as it always was with this mech.

Ugh. Why couldn’t they have just managed to come and go unnoticed?

“Pit yeah,” Sunstreaker growled at him.

It was impossible to tell if their commissioner was sad or not, his field was always just a fragging  _ mess  _ and nothing else. “To the Pits?”

But they knew this thing. He didn’t like the Pits overmuch, and he definitely didn’t like that it was where the brothers had found a livelihood and a home.

Sideswipe could’ve sworn most of it was just seeing them  _ succeed  _ in something, even if only in a limited capacity. Getting rich with Pit fighting… Yeah, not happening.

But making ends meet through winning matches? Doable, if you were good enough. 

And they were.

And  _ they  _ didn’t waste every credit they earned.

It was an argument they’d had a million times before. Sunstreaker didn’t do more than rev his engine in warning. And it  _ was  _ a warning. They’d taught themselves how to fight through blood and dents and more blood and dents. They knew what they were doing by this point, at least for mecha their age. They were  _ better  _ than most of their peers, even if they weren’t about to get to champion levels anytime soon.

Most fights weren’t fair to begin with, but it would be especially unfair against a mech who could barely stay on two pedes. One punch and he’d be down—and anyone who knew Sunstreaker knew he was perfectly willing to throw that punch. 

Then again their sole remaining commissioner didn’t exactly know them, so maybe he thought there was some sort of  _ affection  _ or  _ respect  _ that would keep them from decking him.

There wasn’t.

“Out of the way,” Sunstreaker ordered once their stalemate had gone on long enough. “We’re fragging leaving.”  _ And not coming back. _

“You’re not yet mentored.” Mentored, _ legally independent,  _ same thing.

But  _ bad wording. _ “You’ve never done a damn thing to mentor us,” Sunstreaker hissed, taking one step forward. A clear  _ threat.  _ “Or did you totally miss the bit where we had to raise ourselves because  _ you  _ were too busy wallowing in your misery?”

“I  _ stayed,” _ their commissioner argued with a shaking voice, although Sideswipe couldn’t have told what made it shake. Emotion or high grade?

“All the good that did!” Sunstreaker argued right back, his voice raising like it often did when they were caught in situations like these. It was doubtful the neighbors would even bother to see what the ruckus was about, anymore.

And there was a lot of bitter resentment there—and this might be their last chance to air any of it. They sure as pit weren’t planning on ever seeing the face of the damn mech again.

So Sunstreaker chose to do just that. “We had to practically live on the streets anyway, because  _ you  _ sure as pit weren’t looking after us! It’s a fragging miracle we didn’t need to whore ourselves out just to get enough fuel to get by, and what did  _ you  _ do? Sat here all day every day, on your fragging aft, trying to drink your problems away? What’s even so sad about your life, the slagging fact you were stuck with  _ us? You _ commissioned us!” his brother alternatively growled and straight up yelled.

Was it a fair rant? Not really. 

Was it well earned despite that? Sure was, if you asked Sideswipe. He got it, it was tough to lose one of your best buddies that you had planned to mentor a sparkling with, and then have that topped off with your second best buddy just taking up and leaving because none of them apparently knew how to handle any of their issues.

What excuse was that to neglect the life you had  _ paid  _ to create and  _ supposedly  _ committed to mentor into maturity?

Or maybe they were just really slagging selfish and should’ve gone easier on the mech—that had taken credits  _ they’d  _ earned just to spend it on more  _ high grade. _ Oh, they’d learned real damn fast to hide that slag, or spend it on  _ necessities  _ right away so there was nothing to even steal. What did it matter if  _ they  _ had enough fuel to even stay online, as long as  _ he  _ had more high grade to drown himself in?

Sideswipe didn’t think they were the more selfish ones here, but he might’ve been a little biased. 

Their commissioner was shaking, but it was still impossible to tell  _ why  _ exactly. “I–”

_ “No,” _ Sunstreaker cut him off with a violent lash of his arm, his sharpened claws inches away from scratching the fragging drunkard. “I’m not listening to your fragging  _ excuses. Out of the way.” _

_ Damn right. _

When their commissioner didn’t move fast enough, Sunstreaker’s arm flashed forward, his servo closing around the mech’s faceplates—claws digging into his helmet. There was a muffled sound of protest, then a  _ scream  _ when Sunstreaker simply  _ closed his servo, _ crushing and tearing their  _ mentor’s _ face off, protoform deep.

His vocalizer was still unharmed when Sunstreaker let go. His victim dropped into a graceless heap on the floor like the fragging piece of  _ scrap  _ he was, sobbing, bringing his servos to a face that  _ wasn’t there _ anymore. There wasn’t blood, only the sparking of severed wires and gouged, sightless  _ remains  _ of optics. Crushed plating, scratches.

Sideswipe made a face, but stepped over the weeping frame on his brother’s heels. This… Was a death sentence. There was no way their commissioner could afford repairs, and it was unlikely there was any spark kind enough around to pay them for him. He’d starve into stasis in his bleak, lonely apartment, and one day someone would come to see why he hadn’t paid his rent, find his frame in stasis, and send it to the scrapyard. No one would bother fixing up a random mech that probably couldn’t even pay back for it.

He’d die as alone as he’d lived. Justice? Or, “That was kinda over the top,” Sideswipe commented once they were back in the hallway.

“He had it coming,” was all Sunstreaker grunted in response, setting their pace towards the exit.

Sideswipe thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. Not like they would get in legal trouble for it either. This was  _ Kaon. _ It was every mech for themselves under the dark cast by the first deck.

So, whatever.

They made it to the outside of the residential underbelly of a tower that probably rose somewhere into the sky up above, but that here was nothing but an oily base for wretchedness of so many kinds. 

At least they were free of it, now, even if it hadn’t quite happened as Sideswipe had envisioned.

Back to the Pits with them, then, which some would’ve just called a  _ downgrade— _ but for them it really wasn’t. They had a room just for themselves, fuel, occasional maintenance, and even more occasional chances to hose themselves off instead of just trying to wipe themselves clean. It wasn’t a  _ steady  _ living, but they made it work.

They transformed onto the road and drove through the shadowy streets that no one bothered to light properly. That wasn’t the case everywhere on the lower decks, though, and as they neared their arena, the lights turned brighter and more numerous until they made it to the center of activity surrounding the arena. It was almost as bright as the day of the first deck in this section of the underworld.

Definitely an upgrade.

They drove to the arena’s secondary entrance, transformed back to their bipedal modes, and entered the building. Here there was more to gloom to be found, and more dirt, grime—stains you didn’t even want to know the origin of; dents on the walls, floors, and even the ceiling. Nothing was clean, nothing was in full repair.

But that was the Pits for you. Really, it was just a part of their charm.

The mecha down here didn’t look much better than their surroundings, and they knew they weren’t exactly exceptions. Oh, they tried to take care of their looks, but so did almost every other sorry sap around.

It didn’t work too well for anyone, aside from some of the administration. Those you could recognize when you saw them walking about. Rich bastards—relatively speaking, most of the time. No one down here could compare to the wealth of those who could afford to live in the upper towers.

“A groon until my match,” Sideswipe commented as the reminder popped up on his HUD. “Wasn’t yours one fight after that?”

An affirmative grunt.

“Time to kill. Let’s go watch the matches and make overtly judgmental comments about everyone’s techniques,” Sideswipe grinned, flicking his claws to urge Sunstreaker into following him as he took the turn towards one of the arena gates. Not like they could really go up to the stands, but you could see at least something through the floor level gates, too.

Together they chose a gate that didn’t have more than one other mech observing the fights and went to lean against the thick bars. There were no impressive fights going on this time of the day, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to learn from observing others.

Even if it was just in the way of ‘geez, I’m never doing that myself’. 

“Ugh, the green one’s footwork is garbage,” Sideswipe snickered. The corner of Sunstreaker’s mouth twitched in a  _ near  _ smile.

He’d get the damn mech smiling yet, before his match. That was what he was here for! Be a menace that brightened his twin’s day by being all  _ lovable  _ and slag. He was lovable, wasn’t he?

Sunstreaker was eager to tell him that no, he wasn’t, he was just lucky they were twins or he’d have booked it a long time ago. But, see, Sunstreaker was  _ smiling  _ when he said that, because he couldn’t help himself once Sideswipe found the right buttons to push. It was perfect! And only took him a few seconds, see. Pretty good, if he said so himself.

That still left all the other seconds of the groon to get on each other’s nerves, to the point where they annoyed the third spectator into leaving. You know, instead of each other.

_ Twins. _

“My time!” Sideswipe announced once it was minutes until his match would be called. Still together, they made their way to the right gate, he picked his weapons—twin swords, as he preferred—and entered the arena proper once the gate rose to let him through.

The lights were bright enough to blind, here. Not one drop of energon would go unseen because there wasn’t enough  _ light. _ Everything they did would be on full display.

Sideswipe grinned, that particular bloodthirsty grin, and nodded at his opponent. The mech was bigger than him, but then almost everyone was. Oh, he wasn’t small in the grand scheme of things, but in  _ Kaon  _ he was. 

Came with not being able to afford big enough upgrades to reach the sizes of most other Kaonites. But that was fine, he made this work too.

He went to prove that much both to the audience and his opponent. He was smaller, but that meant he was faster with less mass to move around, and more agile with his lighter armor doing less to restrict his movements. Play your strengths, make up for your weaknesses, all that. He’d danced this same dance thousands of times before, even if the choreography was never quite the same.

The other mech was brandishing a mace, and if that wasn’t a devastating weapon if it landed proper hits. So, don’t let it land proper hits. Sideswipe could’ve never put the same amount of oomph behind the swings as the bigger mech could, but as they moved, it became obvious enough that there really wasn’t that big a skill difference between them. A good match for the audience, not so much for them. Uneven fights where  _ you  _ had the upper hand were always better for finances.

But that just meant he’d need to work harder to come out on top, and preferably without too severe injuries, too. One thing he did have on his side—the rarity of frames at least a head shorter than everyone else. There was really no getting  _ used to _ fighting mecha his size when you faced them so rarely. 

Meanwhile, he was intensely familiar with fighting mecha bigger than himself, because basically everyone was that.

It tipped the odds in his favor  _ just  _ enough, this time around. His opponent couldn’t judge his speed right. Sometimes he thought Sideswipe was slower than he really was, other times that he was faster. As many hits as  _ glanced  _ off of Sideswipe’s armor, leaving minor injuries behind, only one hit him in the side in full force.

Hurt like a bitch, that one, and sent him flying off to the side pretty spectacularly. He landed on his pedes though, only briefly made the mistake of instinctively bringing a servo to his side, and was ready to dodge out of the way when his opponent tried to finish things off. Not like he hadn’t landed his fair share of damage, himself. Some were pretty bad, too.

_ Don’t get cocky. _ That got you beat down into the arena dirt. He was supposed to be better than that by this point.

The roar and stomp of the crowd thrummed through his lines along with the excitement for a victory he tried to push down before it could distract him—and managed, enough so that when one dodge under the mace’s swing saw him in position to sink one of his swords into the other mech’s chassis, he wasn’t too distracted to see and take the opportunity. He had to get the frag away from there right after because that mace came right back around, but the injury was pretty debilitating by Sideswipe’s judgment. Damaged internal components that were actually  _ important, _ that sort of thing. 

_ Don’t fragging  _ dare  _ get cocky. _

Just a little more. He could do this. If nothing else, his opponent would succumb to his injuries with time, even if Sideswipe couldn’t carve some more on him. Playing it  _ safe  _ wasn’t like him, though, so he didn’t hang back to wait around for time to win the fight for him.

That was what made him good at this. The  _ showiness, _ even if that sometimes meant not doing the smartest, or at least, the most cautious thing. The spectators loved that. They wanted a  _ real  _ fight, every time, and if Sideswipe could deliver that, frag, he would.

It didn’t cost him,  _ this time. _ He got hurt a bit more, but he also got  _ to  _ hurt a bit more, and although none of that damage was really severe enough, it piled on top of the existing injuries until this one time his opponent couldn’t keep his footing anymore and fell, onto his back, into the dirt.

Sideswipe took the chance it was to close in. The mech tried to still fend him off, but just  _ couldn’t  _ anymore, not before Sideswipe’s sword pressed snugly against his throat.

It wasn’t a death match. There wouldn’t be a kill, this time.

But had he gone through with that last attack, that would not have held true. Everyone knew it.

“Yield,” his opponent said, grudgingly, but he got to walk away with his life. Did that make him lucky, or just someone who now had their life, sure, but no credits to their name?

Not Sideswipe’s problem. He grinned at the mech one more time before he turned his back to him and lifted his sword to the cheer of the crowd.

Credits. They always needed those. They needed to fuel, they needed to pay for the repairs they couldn’t perform themselves, they needed tools for the repairs they could do on their own—their room wasn’t free either, they had to pay to use it. They needed to maintain their looks even somewhat. Cloths, solvent, sometimes even polish. 

Expenses, expenses, expenses, no matter how frugally they tried to live.

Were they ever going to dig themselves out from the gutters, or would they always live on pede in the sludge of the streets? Everyone tried to get out. The vast majority never succeeded.

But they could dream.

His side was wonderfully caved in, armor uncomfortably pressing against his jarred and misaligned internal components, and that was a little too much for them to fix. Sunstreaker accompanied him to the sorry space that worked as the arena’s medical bay—they paid, he got repairs from someone who had probably failed the integration of his medical files. That was what you got down here. No one could truly count themselves a winner if they were stuck in the arenas of the lower decks. 

But it got them by. He felt worse by the end of his repairs than he did before them, but the damage warnings had either dismissed themselves or lowered in importance.

Good enough, that was all you could ever ask for.

Sunstreaker was always a pleasure to watch in the ring, too. He was  _ efficient, _ not one to play around, just a destructive force on a warpath that would see anything in its way destroyed. Did he always win? No. They faced their betters semi-regularly, like anyone else.

That didn’t make Sunstreaker any less as a fighter, in Sideswipe’s opinion. And they got better, constantly. They practiced, took every opportunity to learn more, studied others, studied  _ themselves  _ to analyze what they could do better. They didn’t settle.

His brother’s unbridled brutality won him his match too. It wasn’t just their unfortunate commissioner that got to taste his claws, and whatever other weapons he chose to use, a sword this time. Just one.

The weapons, too. They practiced with as many of those as they could, not just so they could wield them themselves, but so they knew  _ how  _ they were wielded and wouldn’t get caught off-guard by someone who used them. 

Maybe they’d never make it out of here, but slag, they’d try their hardest anyway.

Sunstreaker needed a few things fixed by a medic too, but even after those payments, their winnings were enough to get them fuel. The rest would go into savings, this time.

They weren’t the only ones at the energon dispensers they made their way to, and they weren’t all strangers there, either. Sunstreaker never talked a hell of a lot with others, but Sideswipe made up for it like always. A couple of friends, a bunch of acquaintances, chatter, teasing, laughter. Recounting of their more recent victories, lamenting of their losses.

The message alert popped up on both of their HUDs at the same time, high enough in priority that it overrode– Actually, that was the highest priority a message could be.

They shared a glance. There wasn’t much question what this was about.

“I think we just got our test date,” Sideswipe stated out loud at the inquisitive looks they both got for their sudden distraction. There was a chorus of understanding noises after that. It wasn’t a secret they hadn’t reached maturity yet, at least not officially.

But they would have, after this. _ Independence, _ not tied to anyone. Do what they wanted with no one able to tell them they shouldn’t. Well, aside from the law and all that. But mostly what they wanted!

“Congrats, you’re about to join the big league,” one of the mecha he wouldn’t  _ quite  _ count a friend yet laughed.

“Yeah, it’s really just a formality,” another shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Just show up, get it done, and that’s it, you’ve got your legalities all sorted.”

“I mean,” Sideswipe said after he consulted his navigation system to see where the address they were given was, and  _ wow, _ “at least we’ll get to see some  _ high end _ areas for once.

“We’re gonna look  _ so  _ out of place.”

More friendly laughter. Everyone kept their distance from Sunstreaker, but a servo clapped Sideswipe on the shoulder. “Enjoy it while it lasts! Take in the sights, snap some pics. You’ll be back down here right after.”

“Bring a souvenir, too!”

Sideswipe laughed and even Sunstreaker made an amused sound. “I’ll snatch something from the clinic before making a run for it, that good enough?”


	2. New Futures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the thing that got originally posted, so if you read this before I posted the current first chapter, you'll find nothing new!

“Figures they wouldn’t let any of the grunge clinics handle this,” Sideswipe commented as they transformed next to the walkway. There was actual _sunlight_ here. Sunlight! The lower decks they usually hung around in couldn’t even dream of ever seeing the light of day. 

“Too important, too important,” Sunstreaker agreed. The clinic they’d gotten the summons from was just across the daylit bridge. Things up here didn’t exactly gleam like he’d seen some of the other city-states do—no building in Kaon did—but the layer of grime was still _not_ inches thick.

It wasn’t that they’d never visited the surface level, or even the cross-tower roads and walkways high above the first deck, but it definitely wasn’t their usual venue. They looked the part of guttermecha too, sadly, so they got _looks_ from the other passersby.

But… Those looks turned into dawning understanding when their casters had a look at where they were headed. Yeah, they probably weren’t the only lowlifes who had temporarily dug their way from the gutters and up here just for this—and only to fall right back down once the deed was done.

That was going to be them too, most likely. But hey, at least they could enjoy the sunlight while it lasted. It actually warmed your plating a bit this high up, where the smog wasn’t quite as heavy. Very nice.

Then they were across the bridge, though, all the way to the doors of the upper end clinic. Normally there was no way the likes of them would’ve been welcome in a place like this, but this wasn’t _normally._ This was a once in a lifetime event, and a pretty important one too, no matter how low the chances of anything coming out of it were.

But a low chance wasn’t a no chance. There was a chance. Sideswipe couldn’t say they were decided on whether scoring that would be a positive or a negative thing. Not scoring it, and it was as if nothing had happened. Their life would go right back to the way it was before the summons. Back to the Pits, back to the fighting and scraping by through earning themselves some hard come victories. Nothing fancy.

 _Scoring it,_ meanwhile, would lead to a total flurry. He wasn’t even sure _what_ exactly would happen, besides the broad and obvious of moving into a House. Everyone knew that much would happen.

But not much beyond that.

What was certain even in that uncertainty was that _everything_ would change. For the better, or for the worse? That was a hard question to answer, all things considered.

The doors to the well lit interior of the clinic’s waiting area opened on their approach. The receptionist had one look at them and they could feel scans wash over them, before they were beckoned further in. “Here for your test, right? Take a seat, a medic will get you shortly,” he said, gesturing at the chairs in the waiting area.

They said their thanks—or Sideswipe did, Sunstreaker just nodded—before sitting down and getting comfortable for all the _minute_ it took for a medic to come through another set of double doors that presumably led further into the clinic. “Sunstreaker, Sideswipe?” he asked, and they got right back up to follow him through the doors that opened to a hallway with more doors along it. It was as well lit as the rest here, in stark contrast to the lower decks.

The medic opened the fourth door along the hallway, and stepped aside to let them through first.

They shared a glance. This was it. Moment of truth or whatever. How lucky or unlucky would they be?

“Let’s get this over with,” Sunstreaker grunted after a few seconds, entering the room, Sideswipe on his heels. There was a desk with a console at the back of the room, an exam table in the middle, some equipment and other instruments along the walls. A pretty standard medical room as far as they could tell, and still vastly better looking than any of the ones on the lower levels.

But that was to be expected.

“Have a seat,” was all their medic said, waving vaguely in the direction of the central berth. They took the invitation and walked over to the center of the room, both of them hopping up to sit on the berth’s edge. The medic busied himself along a table with all sorts of stuff on it, readying things before placing them on a cart that he pulled along with him when he finally came to them.

“Split-spark? If you’d merge for me,” he instructed them. Usual request whenever their spark was going to get prodded at, and always just as awkward. Not just because they needed to do it in front of someone, but also because… Well.

They turned to each other, parted their chestplates, and it was only because of _practice_ that they could even halfway elegantly close the distance between them while sitting and twisting at the waist just to allow the maneuver. Their spark halves jumped for each other, as always, melding together almost as if it had never gotten split in two in the first place. That left their spark very comfortable, but their frames very uncomfortable because of the position they needed to hold to maintain the merge—and _then,_ pull apart just enough to leave their combined spark hovering between them and allow a third party access to it.

The medic waited patiently through the process and only stepped up to them once they were set and ready to get this over with as quickly as possible. “Let me make sure your spark really is mature, first,” said the medic, bringing out a handheld scanner and aiming it at their spark. “You’re old enough that it should be…” the scanner beeped, “Ah, it is. Excellent. Now then!”

“Why do you gotta wait until the spark’s mature, anyway?” Sideswipe interjected as the medic busied himself with another device. “Couldn’t you just test it right in the beginning?”

He was half expecting to just get ignored or brushed aside, but to his surprise he actually got an actual, informative answer. “Sparks change plenty through the process of their growth. You’ll get all kinds of false readings before things stabilize to their final shape… So, someone could come out positive as a fledgling, only for that to turn into a true negative once their spark reaches maturity.”

“Huh,” Sideswipe noted, ever the brainiac. Now that it got mentioned, the data of his basic education helpfully fetched and integrated just that bit of information. Way to make a mech feel like he should’ve always known that, because he _had_ always known that, it just… Hadn’t come up before.

Which probably said something about how poorly they’d had even the most basic things integrated, but hey. Couldn’t have everything!

“Alright, stay still, please,” the medic went on to say, bringing the reasonably complex looking contraption he’d been fiddling with to their spark and carefully positioning it to cradle their lifeforce, without cutting their spark’s access to their frames.

Staying still seemed like a good idea lest something got disconnected anyway. It was always a bit embarrassing when one of them dropped down grey because their spark lost contact with that frame.

“There might be some discomfort,” came all the warning they got mere seconds before the device whirred to life. Sunstreaker grunted and Sideswipe hissed as it began to feed dead energy into their spark, the medic focused on the process and the readings. 

It was uncomfortable, that was no lie, but it didn’t actually hurt. There was a steady burn and an unpleasant sense of fullness, but no actual pain.

It didn’t last long either, but even before the device died back down, the medic’s optics _brightened_ and Sideswipe could feel his tanks sinking.

Jackpot?

 _Jackpot._ “Congratulations! Your spark is a carrier. Very good odds of conception too.” The mech seemed genuinely excited, quickly but carefully pulling away the testing apparatus and setting it aside. “You can close your chestplates now,” he said, almost as an afterthought just as a door at the back of the room opened to admit an enforcer.

Flurry, huh? The brothers were quick to separate their spark into two again, locking their respective halves back within the confines of their respective frames, and experimentally dropped off the berth.

No one told them they shouldn’t have. The medic was back at his console, jacked into it with a procession of information flitting across the screen, downloaded to a datapad by the looks of things. The enforcer stood by, and Sideswipe desperately wanted to ask _now what,_ but his vocalizer was oddly strangled. He didn’t get nerves often, fright even more rarely, but right now he was pretty sure he was feeling some of that. Wasn’t it justified enough in the circumstances?

No going back to their life as it was, now. This was the “everything would change,” whether they liked it or not.

And they still weren’t sure how much they did or didn’t like it.

Was it okay if it felt pretty surreal for now? Even though they probably should have prepared themselves for this? But it happened barely _ever._

How were they supposed to expect _they_ would test positive, when practically no one else did?

They weren’t prepared.

The medic disconnected the datapad once he had finished his download, and handed it to the enforcer who accepted it with a nod and subspaced it with barely a glance.

Then he turned to them while the medic went right back to doing whatever on his console. “Do you have any personal belongings you need to get?” the enforcer asked from them. His voice was very pleasant, Sideswipe noted even as his processors were busy firing empty.

Sunstreaker wasn’t doing a whole lot better, but still managed to answer, “We… Have a room in the Pits?”

The enforcer nodded. “Please come along and send me the location. I will escort you there for you to get your possessions.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sunstreaker breathed, uncharacteristically inelegant, and Sideswipe uncharacteristically quiet. He just still felt about ready to faint while his mind tried to wrap itself around this.

It wasn’t doing a very good job of it, but Sunstreaker nevertheless sent the location for the arena they made their home in and they followed the enforcer through the room’s further door, into what looked like staff only area, and through those to a back door that opened to daylight again.

Another enforcer was already waiting by the nearby transformation lane. “Please drive between us,” was the request they got, and since the frag when had enforcers been so polite?

But they were very polite now. “Sure,” Sideswipe managed to find his voice enough to say and he and Sunstreaker stepped to the transformation lane, one enforcer in front of them, another behind them. They all shifted into their alt-modes and the one at the front led the way with the one in the back keeping _very_ close to Sideswipe’s bumper, in turn forcing Sunstreaker right to the rear of the enforcer in the front.

Probably just as intended, there.

They took turns, loops, and ramps, slowly circling towards the ground level, deeper into the shadows of the towers, and then diving under Cybertron’s surface entirely—into the lower decks where enforcers weren’t a very welcome sight. They weren’t about to get rid of their escort though, even if they’d wanted to. Apparently things just didn’t work like that anymore.

Pits, where the slag were they going from here?

This detour into the arena would probably be the last _familiar_ thing they’d get to experience in a long time. Sideswipe’s spark was fluttering with longing even before they came to the arena’s gladiators’ entrance and transformed back to their bipedal modes, all four of them. Still one enforcer stayed ahead of them, another right behind them, as they were led into the building’s greasy underbelly, towards the fighters’ quarters.

They got looks. They got so many looks even Sideswipe ducked his helm self-consciously, and he was a showman by trade.

But this wasn’t fighting on the arena floor under hundreds of optics thirsty for bloodshed. This was them getting marched right into their new life in front of mecha they _knew_ —maybe not quite friends, most of them, but acquaintances, some long time so. Handlers, newbies, veterans, they all stopped what they were doing and _stared_ as they walked by. The enforcers never once averted their optics from straight ahead and Sunstreaker did his best to do the same, but Sideswipe couldn’t stop stealing sideways glances at everyone.

“Did you test positive?!” one certified friend whispered urgently as he trotted up to them—only to get pushed aside by one of the enforcers.

“Please keep your distance,” was the order their friend was given, spoken in a firm rumble.

_Frag._

Sideswipe nodded mutely before he was herded forward, leaving more than a few dropped jaws in their wake.

They walked all the way to the dinged door of the room they had been given. It was a tiny thing, barely big enough for one mech to reside in semi-comfortably, and they’d always shared it.

It was better than out there on the streets, though.

They didn’t own much, never had, and they quickly gathered up the few worldly possessions that didn’t make permanent homes in their subspaces. The enforcers stood right outside the (open) door, one looking at them, another scanning the hallway.

They were being guarded so, so closely. Imagine that, jumping from certified _nobodies_ to some of the most valuable mecha on all of Cybertron. Yeah, there was no way anything would stay the same from here on out. And… Some of that change would probably be for the better.

But there were good chances some of it would be for the worse. 

They would probably find all that out soon. Very soon, because they had one more glance around the room, concluded they’d gotten everything… And looked back at the enforcers. “Are you ready?” the one that had been all but staring at them the whole time asked.

They nodded. The doorway was cleared for them to step through, and back to that march they were, except now in the opposite direction.

There were even more mecha congregated around to stare at their little procession. No doubt news traveled fast. The twins had finally reached maturity, went to get their test and surprise surprise! They were _positive._ Had any of them ever seen that happen before? Two gladiators, that weren’t that bad but weren’t some of the best either, getting pulled from their lowly origins to… What?

What were they headed to?

The enforcers kept anyone from getting too close, clearing the way for them as they walked through the halls that were quickly growing crowded. Their pace was swift, like they wanted out of here as fast as possible. Sideswipe could imagine it. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to your precious little carriers, and this was a dangerous locale. Best not to linger.

But it had been _their_ locale. They knew how things ran. It was their home, the place they felt like belonging, messed up as that was.

No, _had been._ Had been their home. Wasn’t going to be that from now on.

What would be?

Pits, there were so many questions he had, but he wasn’t sure the enforcers were the right persons to ask any of those from, and besides… They’d probably find out at least most of the answers soon enough.

There were mecha gathered even on the outside of the arena, apparently there just to see _them_ as if they were some overnight celebrities. And maybe they sort of were with how much this kind of slag just _didn’t happen._ There were murmurs aplenty all around as they stepped through the doors and back to the street, although no one tried to actually approach them. He wasn’t sure if the enforcers would’ve been able to stop them even if they’d tried, what with there only being two of them, but… You didn’t touch carriers. You just _didn’t._ That was ingrained so deep that it looked like even rabble like this followed that rule.

Probably worked best for them. They were decent at taking care of themselves, but they might’ve been a bit in over their heads here, looking at some of the mecha busy ogling them.

Still, everyone cleared them room to get to the road, transform, and off they were again—sandwiched between the enforcers all over again.

Except this time they didn’t know where they were headed, and no one bothered to fill them in. He would really like to know that though, so Sideswipe reached with his short range communications and took it upon himself to ask, ::Uh… Where are we going?::

::House Beta,:: he got an answer from one of the enforcers promptly. ::They have the accommodations for you.::

House. This quickly? It hadn’t even been two hours, and they were already headed for a House?

Primus, they didn’t dawdle with these things.

He had more questions too, but lapsed into silence as they drove, the enforcers leading them back towards the surface. He still didn’t think they were the right people to ask all the things from. At the House would be mecha better suited for that, probably—and to that end, once they were on the first deck again, they took course towards the city center and presumably the House they were going to.

House Beta. Where was that? He had no idea. It had never been prudent for them to know these things. Maybe it would be now. Or maybe it still wouldn’t matter once they got there. You didn’t exactly see carriers _walking about._ The location might be completely irrelevant, at least compared to them actually being there.

How fine were they with that? He wasn’t sure yet. He wasn’t sure about a damn thing yet.

They didn’t make it all the way to the city center before the enforcers began to choose ramps to take them above the surface again, onto the roads traversing between the towers. Fliers flitted above and below them, and the sun got warmer the higher they went.

And they went as high as the roads would take them. Once there was nothing but open sky above them, the enforcers stopped at one of the towers and transformed. The twins followed suit, just to get quickly led not to the main doors into the tower itself, but to what looked like maintenance or staff entrance.

But this high up even those doors opened to a spacious, well lit hallway, unlike you would’ve expected from the _lower end_ areas down below where barely the environment the customers were in mattered, nevermind that of the actual workers.

Onward they went to a set of elevators, barely passing by a single mech—probably just how the enforcers wanted it. The elevators here weren’t as big as he assumed those in the common areas were, but they still easily fit all four of them.

Up they went. Sideswipe followed the numbers rise on the elevator’s display, showing how high in the tower they were going.

They were going damn high. Even with the elevator moving fast it took them a good while before they began to slow down. They’d already been in the upper third of the tower. Now they were in the _middle_ of the upper third.

He had never been this high up, but once the elevator stopped and its doors opened, there were no windows to be seen no matter how he’d hoped for some, just to get a glimpse of the view. Instead there were just more well lit hallways, still appearing to be the back areas of the tower where there was really no one around, and even the few mecha they passed didn’t stop to gawk.

Just a glance, a knowing smile, sometimes a nod. Nothing more than that. They minded their own business. 

But apparently everyone could guess why they were here. Not that it was hard. Two guttermechs getting escorted around by enforcers in a place like this, and _not_ towards the closest exit?

There weren’t a whole lot of reasons for why that would be.

They walked along the twisting corridors for a decent while before there was a set of double doors along an otherwise empty hallway. There was a guard standing just outside the door, painted deep, rich brown with just accents of white, who looked their way as they approached. He… Smiled at them. The expression was genuinely friendly, as far as they could tell.

Then the guard nodded at the enforcers and opened the door.

Two more guards were on the other side, by all appearances already waiting for them.

And just like that the enforcers handed them from one set of guardians to another, along with what was probably the datapad the medic had given them. That was given to one of the guards and they were guided into the room, just a little dimmer than the hallway, and then the doors closed behind them.

Locked, too. They could hear that much.

“Ah, you’re here! Welcome!” said a mech that was at the back of the room but now hurried closer.

 _All_ the way closer, enough to grab Sideswipe by the hand with both of his servos, giving it an exuberant shake. Luckily he didn’t repeat the gesture on Sunstreaker, although Sideswipe wasn’t sure they weren’t both so dumbfounded by everything that his brother would’ve even remembered to react. It was one thing to get driven around the city to a fate they weren’t even sure about, quite another to get hit by the whirlwind of energy that surrounded this particular mech.

That went to introduce himself very quickly. “My name is Dawnlight, Head of this House. Welcome to Kaon’s Breeder House Beta.”

“Hi?” Sideswipe tried, earning a smile for his trouble before Dawnlight had a proper look at them and gasped in what didn’t _look_ like exaggerated horror.

“Oh, you poor darlings!” he said with feeling, prompting them both to glance down their frames.

But no, there wasn’t more than the usual scuffs and grime, but apparently that was enough to make Dawnlight react. He continued, “Let’s get you settled in, then you can clean yourselves off. Maybe a nice oil bath too? You must be feeling _awful._ And a _thorough_ medical check afterwards.”

“Uh…” but they weren’t much given a chance to say anything before Dawnlight ushered them further into the room. The two guards in the room trailed after them, although they let the bustling mech handle things after handing that one damned datapad to him. Dawnlight had a brief look at it before subspacing it.

“You must have so many questions!” _Wasn’t that true._ “I will do my best to explain everything, and if you have any questions despite my best attempts, ask! But first, could you please empty your subspaces onto this table,” Dawnlight requested with one of those really warm smiles that made Sideswipe really unsure of how he was supposed to react to the mech. The table’s surface was tapped with a digit.

Sideswipe glanced at Sunstreaker and after a delay Sunstreaker looked from Dawnlight back at him, but… Slag, what were they going to do? Fight the procedures? What would that get them?

Sunstreaker shrugged at him, and as one they began to empty their subspaces. There wasn’t much, just some knick-knacks and small weapons like knives, a few datapads, art and polishing supplies on Sunstreaker’s part too.

Anything dangerous they set down Dawnlight deftly picked up and moved to the side, leaving only _harmless_ things on the table. “Do you do arts, honey?” he asked from Sunstreaker at the sight of the few art related things they’d managed to scrounge together. The golden twin nodded mutely after a moment’s hesitation, and Dawnlight’s smile lit back up. “It is so good to have hobbies! You will have plenty of chances to express yourself creatively here.”

Wasn’t that nice. They were getting relieved of anything they could use to harm others (or themselves), but there would be chances for _art._ Even their datapads—Dawnlight took out two datapads of his own, plugged both of them into each datapad they set down, and downloaded the contents from _their_ datapads onto _his_ datapads, before setting _their_ datapads to the side with their other _dangerous_ things.

Something was off here. Not just about Dawnlight’s whole demeanor, but just… With the whole thing. Was this standard practice?

Honestly, it probably was considering what kind of places the Houses were, from the little they knew about them. There was no way everyone was happy to end up in them.

Were they happy? Sideswipe could answer that with a firm _no,_ but what he couldn’t say was that he was _unhappy_ about it either. Maybe just because he still knew jackall about the whole deal, but Dawnlight had promised answers, so maybe things would clear up soon.

Once they’d emptied their subspaces, one of the guards jacked into both of them and used _very_ high level security overrides on their systems to make sure they weren’t hiding anything more, and if that didn’t feel invasive Sideswipe wasn’t sure what would. Sunstreaker growled an objection too, but Dawnlight merely _shushed_ him, like he was a goddamn youngling.

His brother growled some more at that, but it still got confirmed their subspaces were empty, and that they had no unacceptably risky body modifications while at it. Everything deemed safe enough they got to subspace again, while the dangerous things… Sideswipe wouldn’t have bet on ever seeing those things again.

“Come along then, I will introduce you to your new home,” Dawnlight said once they were all set, still smiling that somewhat patronizing smile that was really starting to get on Sideswipe’s nerves, and he knew Sunstreaker was several shades more aggravated than even he was. But whether they liked it or not, Dawnlight led the way to a door at the back of the room that opened to yet another hallway, though this one short.

Both of the guards followed them too. “Would you like separate rooms, or share?” Dawnlight asked from them, interjecting with a brief, “Our medical bay is down this corridor,” pointing towards a bend in the hallway, before giving them a chance to answer.

It was an easy answer. “Share.” Dawnlight nodded at them, and that seemed to be that.

They didn’t go towards the medical bay, but instead took a small ramp to the next story down. A larger hall greeted them, with another guard sitting at a desk along it. He smiled and nodded at them in greeting as they walked by him to a sturdy set of sliding doors, that opened to _another_ short hallway.

There were no guards here, but Sideswipe would’ve bet his aft there were cameras.

At the end of that hallway was another set of sliding double doors, and by the looks of things _all_ of the doors they’d passed required credentials to open—credentials they weren’t given.

These doors opened to them too, and on the other side was… A large room. The walls of it were a warm two-shade brown, the floor a bit darker. The center of the room was two stories high with a walkway circling the space on the second floor, shading the edges of the first floor. Two ramps led up to the second story on both sides of the room.

And in the walkway’s shade, the walls were lined with numbered doors at steady intervals.

Sideswipe’s optics drew back to the main space from there, to a large entertainment center. There were plenty of comfortable looking seats around it, and yet more tables elsewhere in the room. Shelves stood on one wall between the many doors, full of what looked like games and other pastimes from this distance. 

A few mecha were sitting around as they entered, looking up at them. Some of them smiled and waved, others didn’t much react.

Sideswipe waved back experimentally.

It was homey, all things considered. There was enough light that little was left in shade, and there looked to be a lot to do and lot to get comfortable on, and… Really, it was just a lot nicer than anything in the Pits had been, or frag, anything they’d ran into before the Pits for that matter.

It _looked_ like an upgrade, but he wasn’t fully convinced it was one anyway, because aside from the niceties it mostly just reminded him of a prison block. 

Was that what they were, now? Prisoners?

And guards. There were more brown and white clad guards. One was standing right by the door, he could see another leaning on the railing on the second floor, and a third was at the back of the room, talking with another mech that didn’t look like a guard himself. 

The ones that had accompanied them kept accompanying them as Dawnlight gestured at the room at large and led the way further into it. “This is the common area. There’s much entertainment provided as you can see, but if there’s ever any you feel like you’re lacking, all you need to do is say so and I’ll see what I can do about it.”

They arrived to the back right corner of the room, to an open doorframe. Dawnlight stopped next to it, smiled at them, and encouraged them to look inside. They did. “This is the kitchen. The energon dispenser is always stocked, and the appliances are all in your use if you ever get the fancy to make anything. Remember to share with the others, though!”

“Are there ratios?” Sideswipe asked. The kitchen wasn’t big, but it was well equipped. Anything a mech could need to make all sorts of things.

A couple more tables with chairs around them were inside, too.

“Ratios?” Dawnlight asked, again looking more than a little horrified. Sideswipe quickly received a reassuring pat on his arm. “Oh, dear, no. You can fuel as much as you want. Never you worry about that.”

That was… A decently pleasant surprise and a nice change of pace from what their whole goddamn life had been like so far. Sideswipe nodded his understanding, and… Slag, it might be nice to have full tanks for once.

So, that was another good thing about this, apparently.

They followed Dawnlight to the left corner next. This one had a door, but it had no number on it, and when Dawnlight opened it, “Here are the washracks. You’re in desperate need of them, aren’t you, darlings? They’re very well stocked, but if you’re ever missing something despite that, all you need to do is say so!”

The room wasn’t fancy, but it was functional. There were several showers along the walls, baskets hung next to them full of washing supplies, and even a small oil bath in the middle—big enough for two mechs by Sideswipe’s judgement. 

Primus knew he’d never even seen an oil bath before. It would be fun to test that out.

So… This wasn’t all negative. Really, it wasn’t, but it still… Didn’t sit all well with him.

The guards continued to follow them as Dawnlight directed them up one ramp to the second floor. He turned left once he reached the walkway and the twins followed him for a few steps before he stopped by one door—door numbered _twenty-two_ —and opened it. “Alright loves, this will be your room,” he announced with a smile, gesturing for them to go see it.

They did, albeit a bit hesitantly. Sunstreaker stepped into the room first, Sideswipe on his heels, and together they had a look around.

It wasn’t… Big. Far from it, but it still had well enough space for a double berth, one nightstand-like table next to it, a sofa for two in one corner, a desk with a chair in another, and a set of drawers with a mirror above them, and one single light at the center of the ceiling. The walls and floor were the same as elsewhere in the House, and another unobtrusive, closed door sat on the back wall.

There were just the furnishings though, no other signs that it had ever been lived in. But that probably figured if it was free for them.

“You can customize things to your liking and make this look a bit more lived in,” Dawnlight addressed just that detail, watching them as they took in their new… Home. Apparently. “Just don’t move the furniture around without a go ahead, we want to keep things easy to access.”

“How do we like… Get stuff to customize things with?” Sideswipe asked after there wasn’t anything more to see in the relatively spartan room, looking back at Dawnlight.

“Oh! Silly me, I nearly forgot these,” Dawnlight gasped, quickly pulling the two datapads from his subspace that he’d uploaded all of the contents of their old datapads to. Each of them was handed one. “The House has its own application, installed on your ‘pads, that all of the carriers and staff can access. Browse the datanet for things to buy as you normally would, and then place a requisition order through the app. Everything reasonable will usually be granted. Decorations, games, book files, movies, you name it.”

They accepted the datapads. Sideswipe turned his on and… Aside from the mentioned application at easy access, it looked just like any datapad.

He didn’t think it was, though. “Why couldn’t we have our old ‘pads?” he asked, looking up from the screen.

Dawnlight didn’t look too perturbed by the question and just smiled that smile again. It was like he thought he was talking to children or something. “Safety reasons. That is our primary goal here, to make sure you’re secure and comfortable.”

“So these are bugged,” Sideswipe guessed. “You can see everything we do with them.”

Still Dawnlight gave no signs of being uncomfortable with his forwardness. Neither did the two guards for that matter. “That is correct! We don’t want you to end up in any dangerous situations, even just on the datanet.”

“Right,” Sideswipe said, a bit skeptical. Was it about their safety, or was it just about controlling them and… Every aspect of their lives from now on, it looked like. “Is there something we’re not supposed to be doing with these?”

“You will be informed if something you’re doing is deemed too risky, you don’t need to worry about it yourself.”

So getting controlled, practically imprisoned, and treated like younglings that didn’t know near enough about life and how things worked? Though, granted, they didn’t yet know too much about how things worked, but pits, the _tone_ Dawnlight was using. 

But speaking of imprisoned, “Are we allowed to leave?” Sideswipe asked.

He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, and Dawnlight confirmed that with a simple, “No. For your safety you will remain here where we can keep you safe and guarded at all times.”

Imprisoned, then. “How long?” he still asked, but he feared he knew that answer too.

And it really was a displeased kind of expectation of the worst sort right then. Here was the downside to all of this. “Rest of your lives, ideally,” Dawnlight answered.

 _Ideally,_ he said. As if there was anything ideal about… This.

But what had he thought would happen? Something other than this? There was nothing other than this for anyone who came out positive. Just a House, and… Everything that happened in a House. “Right,” Sideswipe said again, more quietly this time, and let his optics fall back to the datapad in his hands. For all the positives, the improvements in their future quality of life compared to their old one… As much fuel as they needed and then some, washracks, things to do…

But not allowed to leave, _ever,_ and used just for what the house was named for until their spark gave out from the strain. _That_ was what carriers did.

Even with all the improvements, could anyone really _want_ this? Would they have preferred their life of hardship, where they at least were free?

There was a bit of desperation, right next to the knowledge that there wasn’t really anything they could do. They could fight, but that was what everything here was designed for—to make fighting useless, make things inevitable.

But it was a tough thing to just _accept,_ either. 

“Let me walk you through how things are run here, now,” Dawnlight continued, sitting on the berth and patting it on either side of him in invitation. Sideswipe didn’t really _want_ to go, Sunstreaker even less so, but it wouldn’t help them at all if they didn’t know how things worked. No matter what they would choose to do, being informed was a good first step.

So, despite their reluctance, they sat down on both sides of the House’s Head. Dawnlight pulled out a datapad of his own after they were settled, hooking to it and bringing out… Their information. They recognized that much, from their pictures and spark signature if nothing else. Everything the government knew about them was on display, from their activation to their recorded history and medical profile—that now had the additional and most important note that their spark was a carrier. “This is your file,” Dawnlight said. “For security reasons I can’t show the profiles of the other carriers, but theirs are the same. Now, when a client comes in to purchase a newspark, this is what they will be shown.” He scrolled along the information provided, of which there wasn’t a hell of a lot what with their age and… _Past_ social status, but it was as thorough as it was going to get. “They will pick either one of the available carriers, or ask to be put on a waiting list for one who is heavy at the time. I will publish your profile right after we’re done here and hopefully you’ll get your first client soon.”

Hopefully? Sideswipe wasn’t all that hopeful and Sunstreaker’s engine rumbled unhappily—but that was how things worked. They wouldn’t be able to put it off forever. Sooner or later someone _would_ pick them.

“The client will see you here in your room, coming only through the second door,” Dawnlight said, pointing at the nondescript door at the back wall. So that was what that was for. “A guard will be present at all times, so have no fear of being left alone with a _sleazy_ sort of person.” 

Wasn’t that nice, being concerned over leaving them alone with bad players.

 _Slag all of this._ “You only need to provide your cooperation for the sparking the first time, understandably. This isn’t a whore house.

“Whether the newspark’s frame is built externally or coded internally is up to the client. If they choose the former, you won’t see them again. If they choose the latter and want to contribute, regular appointments will be set up to a frequency of their preference. Whichever one of your frames is carrying at the time will cooperate with interface. Again, a guard will be present at all times; you and the newspark will stay safe.”

And there it was, the crux of a carrier’s life—glorified _rape,_ basically. Their willingness to consent didn’t matter one bit. “What if we refuse?” Sunstreaker asked sharply anyway.

There was no _refusing_ and they both knew it. “Oh, honey, don’t be silly,” Dawnight chastised him. “You’re in the _exceptional_ position of providing Cybertron with new life. This is an honor many wish they had.”

They weren’t so sure about that with the level of trade-off involved, but Dawnlight probably wouldn’t hear any arguments. Sunstreaker growled but didn’t say any more.

“You will care for the newspark to the best of your ability during the carry, of course. Otherwise you’re free to spend your time how you wish. You can lock the door so the other carriers can’t come disturb you, but naturally the guards and staff will always have access. There will be three guards present in the living area at all times. If you need anything, approach any one of them.

“Remember, we’re all here for you,” Dawnlight finished with feeling, looking between them earnestly. “Anything and everything you need will be provided.”

That was… Definitely dread and desperation that was starting to take a hold of their spark. The good qualities of the place? Not really enough to outweigh all the _bad._ The things they’d need to do _just because_ they happened to be capable of carrying, losing their freedom, their control of their own life, their _right_ to their own life. 

But that was what happened to carriers. They’d always known that.

They just hadn’t really thought it would happen to _them._

“Is there any break between carries?” Sideswipe asked quietly, clenching his servos around the datapad still in his hold. He didn’t want to be here anymore, and he didn’t want to _accept_ this, and he didn’t want this to be his life—but no matter what they wanted, that was all theirs now.

“A few days, provided there is another request placed on you.”

A few _days..?_ “Is that even enough time to recover from separation?” Sunstreaker asked, growling anew. 

Dawnlight didn’t take offense and answered as calmly and cheerfully as he had for the whole duration, “Medically speaking, yes. It is most desirable that you produce as many newsparks as possible. The shorter the breaks, the better.”

Sideswipe closed his optics, fighting back tears. On some level they’d known this too. Carriers were bred until their spark couldn’t take it anymore. That was just how it went. For reasons of _productivity,_ it made sense that there would barely be any downtime.

“Cool,” Sideswipe whispered his understanding even as Sunstreaker’s engine revved. His brother was getting angry, where Sideswipe was mostly starting to feel defeated. Could they just… Go back to the way things were. He was starting to understand why some unfortunate individuals tried to avoid ever getting tested, no matter how illegal that was and how heavily the hammer came down when you were caught doing that. And it wasn’t an _if,_ it was a _when._ Maybe you could avoid it for a time, but just their species’ mechanical, connected nature meant it couldn’t work forever.

Sucked to be Cybertronian in that aspect.

And in _this_ aspect. 

Dawnlight patted Sideswipe’s thigh, though he was smart enough to keep his hands off of Sunstreaker. “Get settled in and go make some friends once you’re ready, hmm? I’m sure you’ll fit right in! And remember, if you need _anything,_ just talk to one of the guards and they will help you.”

With that Dawnlight got up and left the room, the two guards disappearing with him. The door closed behind them, and… Then they were alone.

Silence ruled for a good while before Sideswipe released a big gush of air from his vents and set the rigged datapad down to free his arms for dropping his whole damn helm into them. 

It had only been… What, four hours since their test? And already they were here, _thoroughly_ trapped and with all the promises of _safety_ and _security,_ but with no fucks given about what _they_ wanted.

How the pit had things gone like this..?

“What are we going to do?” he asked so quietly he wasn’t sure Sunstreaker could even hear, but it didn’t matter. Their spark rang with the question too.

The answer he got, spoken almost as quietly, wasn’t very comforting. “I don’t know.”

What were even their options? Go along with things and get sparked over and over again? Or fight it and get sparked over and over again anyway? No doubt the guards and administration had all the techniques for wrangling uncooperative breeders into compliance. How often did that even happen, that someone just couldn’t accept their fate and put up a bloody fight? They couldn’t be the only ones entertaining the idea.

How many of them eventually gave up, when all their fighting proved futile?

They knew what was expected of them. Go along with everything asked of them, as long as it followed the rules of conduct around breeders, and those of the House. And at all times there would be guards around to make sure those rules were followed by all parties—and that they were doing what they were supposed to be doing. That was the deal, wasn’t it?

And in return they got a comfortable life in a gilded prison, never needing to yearn for anything except freedom and a right to their own bodies. In the past were the days of scraping by, of not having enough fuel, or access to basic maintenance, not always even chances to clean themselves. 

In the past were the days of going where they wanted and doing what they wanted, too. Sideswipe was pretty sure he would have picked that life with all of its difficulties over _this_ life, despite all of its upsides.

But they’d tested positive, and this was what happened when you tested positive.

“Ugh… Might as well enjoy what there is to enjoy,” Sideswipe spoke up after another long silence, lifting his helm. Feeling sorry for himself was tiresome and wouldn’t get him anywhere anyway. Just… Roll with the punches. Look for the silver lining and all that. Focusing on the negative wasn’t like him anyway. “That oil bath is really calling to me. And so’s a warm cube of energon.”

Sunstreaker snorted next to him before the sound was followed by a sigh. “Can’t disagree with that.”


	3. Declawed

When they walked out of their room and had a look around the common area, they could still see other carriers around. It looked like a couple of them were… Talking with two of the guards—the one standing studiously by the main doors, and another also on the lower floor.

The third guard was on the second floor, standing in the open doorway of another room. He was talking too, presumably to the occupant of the room, but the murmur was too quiet for the twins to catch any words.

It was… Weird, how the guards seemed to interact with the residents of the place so freely. What were they expecting, though?

Honestly, something more akin to what the security personnel in the pits was like, or heck, enforcers. The two that had escorted them here being so nice and polite was a total fluke. Enforcers just weren’t _nice_ or _polite._ At least not towards gutter trash like them.

The security in the pits wasn’t much better than that. The personnel played it tough because that was the only way for them to have any hope of keeping the peace around rowdy gladiators and equally rowdy spectators. And really, “peace” was a relative term. There were always fights that broke out, sometimes someone outright died (or got murdered, however you wanted to look at it), but it would’ve been even worse if no one even _tried_ to do anything about the unrest. 

Here, though? The air around the guards was just so… Casual. And the other carriers didn’t seem uncomfortable talking with them, like he really would have thought they’d be. Weren’t these the mecha that worked hard to keep any of them from leaving? The enemy, sort of?

Or was there just a mindset to this place they hadn’t caught onto yet?

Slag, it was confusing. Just… Worry about it later. Do what they came out of their room to do, right now. A wash so they’d look less out of place among the other, significantly shinier carriers, and equally shiny guards, then testing out that oil bath and hopefully getting rid of that crawling feeling along their spines, and then, fueling. Fueling all the way until their tanks were topped. That would be a first.

He still didn’t completely trust they were allowed to do that in spite of what Dawnlight had said, but at least they could see how far they’d get before someone got on their case about using up too much energon.

More than one pair of optics glanced their way as they walked down the ramp onto the first floor, but no one gave them anything more than a smile. Sideswipe gave a small smile back, not really knowing how the pit he was supposed to respond to that when even the guards— _the guards!_ —shot the friendly expression their way.

Sunstreaker just sneered and led the way to the washracks.

The solvent that rained from the showerheads was _warm,_ also a first. Sideswipe shuddered when it began to patter along his plating, flaring his armor to the best of his ability to let it stream into his internals as well. Frag, that felt… Really good. _Really_ good. And like he was actually getting properly clean instead of just taking a thin layer of the constant grime off of him.

And judging by how filthy the solvent that traveled into the drain was, he was definitely getting clean. Sunstreaker was watching with some marvel as the ever present film of dirt on them was slowly dissolved away, revealing the true gleam of their paint underneath.

Not that they were all that gleamy yet, but it was still a big improvement to being covered in all manner of slag of unknown origins.

After a moment of just _enjoying_ it, Sunstreaker experimentally fetched a scrub from the basket next to the showerhead. Sideswipe followed suit and together, in silence, they began to scrub away the evidence of their… Old life. 

No, don’t think about it. Just enjoy this. The forever layer of brown and grey that tainted their plating came loose as they worked on themselves, and then each other when they ran out of areas they could reach on their own. It was a fragging novelty every step of the way, and Sideswipe tried hard to focus on the fact they could have this any time, from now on. They wouldn’t have to go dirty anymore.

And he still wasn’t enjoying it half as much as Sunstreaker was. His brother had always thought about _looks_ a lot, and compared his own inability to keep clean and shiny to everyone who _could_ do that. End of that, now. They could make themselves as clean and shiny as physically possible, and outdazzle everyone around them. They could. They had good looks, Sideswipe knew that much. Being covered in dirt had never taken away from their physical features.

But now they could _accentuate_ all the positive qualities of their plating, and could add to it instead of making their physique fight a gruesome battle with the smog of the city.

It took them a good, good while before they could count themselves clean, but they worked until they were just that. They could’ve saved some for later, taken several sessions to get all of the grime off of them, and there was probably something left in their internals still that hadn’t gotten dislodged completely… But at least on the outside they were already halfway _glowing._ Sunstreaker was preening at no one in particular as they turned their showers off and went to investigate the oil bath next.

It… Looked like it needed to be turned on before use, lest you wanted a cold bath, but equally it looked like someone had already done that because the oil was already warm. Almost hot, actually, but not so much he’d have expected it to damage their paint. 

Sideswipe was the one to take a step into the bath first, shuddering anew at the feel of the hot oil slipping straight through the gaps of his armor and into the innermost components of his pede and ankle. One pede first, then the other, before he began to lower himself hesitantly. The oil crept up along his frame as he submerged more of it, and so did the warmth and the slickness.

Slickness. Would this mean there would be less chafe and grind in his internals after? He seemed to remember that being the main attraction of oil baths, beyond just the pleasure of warming your whole frame. But you could’ve had solvent baths, yet those were considered nowhere near as luxurious. They were more about cleaning, whereas oil was mostly pampering.

He’d never gotten pampered before. So many new things into just one day.

Sideswipe sighed through the vents in his helmet, the only ones he didn’t need to close—what with not wanting his whole ventilation system flooded and all that. Sunstreaker carefully followed him into the bath, and it really was big enough to fit the both of them. And slag, but doubling the sensation from both of their frames as it swelled in their shared spark… Sideswipe’s optics threatened to slip closed just from the _pleasure_ of it. 

It felt so good. Every component was cradled by the oil, heated and caressed by every motion of the liquid. Sunstreaker did straight up close his optics, leaning his helm back against the rim of the bath and just… Reveling.

There was still that feeling that they were doing something they weren’t supposed to that kept them from _completely_ relaxing, but it was probably unfounded, right? Weren’t all of these facilities just for them—them and the other carriers? They had been pointed as such to them, at least.

So… They had permission.

It was just so out there that he wasn’t sure things wouldn’t stop feeling so unreal anytime soon. A big part of him was expecting to get reminded of his place on the societal ladder at any moment. He was a guttermech. Guttermechs didn’t get to enjoy things like these.

But that was the _past._ Not really– Not really because he _wanted_ it to be, but it was, all the same. 

And his _new_ societal status said he was entitled to things like these. 

It would take a while to start believing that, though. Things would probably slap him in the face yet, after the new _expectations_ of them would come say hi, but for now… Yeah. It was hard to believe any of this was real and something that would last.

Did he even _want_ it to last?

That was irrelevant. There was no choice in this. Just… Enjoy the good things, try to survive the bad. What else could they do?

And damn but this was _enjoyable._ They soaked in the bath for another good long while before reluctantly getting up after they _had_ to have overstayed their welcome, there was no way they hadn’t, and rinsed themselves off quickly before drying up and exiting the washracks.

Not much had changed in the common area. Some of the carriers had changed so there were now different ones spending their time there, but the guards were still around and everything was… Peaceful. 

It was weird. Things were calm and quiet, like they really… They had never experienced the kind of tranquility that permeated the air here. 

Like everyone was fine with being here or something.

Sideswipe frowned, Sunstreaker frowned harder, but they walked through the shadow of the second level’s walkway to the other corner of the common area and the kitchen there. The energon dispenser there was… Oddly fancier than anything they’d seen before, but then they probably should’ve expected that.

Only problem was that they didn’t know how to use it. There were only educated guesses they could make. They didn’t even want anything complex, just heated energon, but even that looked to be really hard to get out of the machine, at least if you didn’t know what you were doing.

They didn’t know what they were doing.

Ugh.

“Do you need help with that?” a voice suddenly spoke up behind them, and they both jerked to glance behind them. One of the guards was standing there.

That was… Weird. But what had Dawnlight said? Everyone was here _for_ them? Was this included or something?

Sunstreaker growled to himself, but Sideswipe nodded after some hesitation. “Kinda? How does this thing work?”

The guard smiled at them and moved closer. They made room for him in front of the dispenser. “This isn’t fully standard, but here goes,” he started and smoothly walked them through the dispenser’s functions before asking what they wanted.

Sideswipe told him, but instead of just making the cubes for them, the guard grinned, stepped to the side, and told them to try for themselves.

But he didn’t go anywhere, so it wasn’t like they were left completely without guidance.

Sunstreaker went first, and although the process was a bit slow and required some thinking, he pressed all the right buttons and got just what he wanted: a warm cube of basic mid grade. Sideswipe only had to copy the whole process, which went a lot easier, and then they both stood with cubes in their hands. Sideswipe blinked down at his, before looking up at the guard when the mech spoke up again. “There you go,” he said, still grinning that friendly grin that actually _wasn’t_ creepy like Dawnlight’s smile was. “I’m Coil, by the way. One of the guards here, obviously,” the mech went to introduce himself.

“I’m Sideswipe. This is Sunstreaker,” Sideswipe responded, then mentally kicked himself. There was no way all of the personnel didn’t already know who they were.

But Coil didn’t suggest he was dumb for saying that in any way, just grinned wider. “Nice to meet you." He didn’t end there though, and Sideswipe blinked some more at what he said next, ”So… How do you feel about being here, if that’s not too direct to ask? You just came, but...” he trailed off.

“Um…” Wow, wasn’t he just a wordsmith today, but what did you even say to questions that direct? Sideswipe’s optics dropped back to his cube and he tapped his claws on it, not really… Sure what he should do. Be honest? Or just say the… Eh, what the slag was Coil even expecting to hear? That they were just fine with this whole thing?

They really weren’t.

“It’s okay to feel out of place,” Coil surprisingly said after the silence had gone on for a moment. Sunstreaker frowned at him; Sideswipe peeked up. Coil smiled at the both of them again, but it _still_ didn’t manage to be off putting like basically everything Dawnlight did was. “This is a big change for anyone. Don’t feel bad for your feelings, alright? They’re valid, no matter what they are.”

No ‘you’ll get used to it’, or ‘this isn’t really that bad’, or… Anything else dismissive.

_What the everloving slag?_

Sideswipe nodded after another very well sized pause. Coil nodded back at him, his field pulsing a friendly note at them before he turned to leave. “Enjoy your cubes, and if you need anything else, just come grab me by the arm if I don’t notice otherwise,” he laughed and saluted them, playfully, then just… Left the kitchen.

Well… He _seemed_ nice? The brothers shared a glance, their spark ringing with confusion. How were they even supposed to feel about _this?_ Nice guards that almost felt like they wanted to be their friend or something? Though that was probably pushing it. He was friendly, sure, but this was his _job._ Chances were he wasn’t doing anything that wasn’t expected of him anyway.

But that level of friendliness and candor was a weird thing to expect from the guards.

He was going to get a splitting processor ache at this rate. Sideswipe made a sound that didn’t really mean anything and scrubbed one servo down his face. So this was a thing now. Alright.

Alright.

“Come on,” Sunstreaker muttered at him, and together they sat at one of the tables in the otherwise empty kitchen. They fueled in physical silence, but their spark was in real turmoil. Things had moved so fast, and now they were just getting hit by curveballs. What were they supposed to do about that?

 _Just roll with it._ They’d been stripped of so much of their freedom and autonomy that there wasn’t really anything else they _could_ do. Things were moving around them and they were being moved, sometimes literally, whether they liked it or not.

At least the energon was tasty. It had none of the grit they were used to, just smooth, high quality mid grade that left a pleasant aftertaste. And it was warm. What was there to not enjoy about it? Nothing, that’s what.

They savored it and took their sweet ass time, both because it was all kinds of pleasurable, and also because they had no slagging clue what they would be doing once they were done with them. Was there something else someone would want from them, or would they just need to figure out how passing the time worked around here? Without being allowed to go out? It looked to be just… A very boring life. 

And Sideswipe in particular didn’t deal too well with boredom. That didn’t spell good things for anyone.

Once they’d emptied their cubes, they weren’t all the way to full tanks. So they got seconds.

No one came to tell them they shouldn’t have.

The second cubes consumed, their fuel levels still weren’t at one hundred. So they fetched third servings.

Still no one came to chastise them. And with that third cube their fuel tanks were _finally_ to max capacity. It was… A really weird feeling. Kinda heavy. But not in a bad way. Not in a bad way at all.

With all of their third serving deposited into their tanks, they dispersed their cubes, and yet… They didn’t get up to leave right away. There was a lot out there that they weren’t sure they wanted to face anytime soon.

It wasn’t like the kitchen was going to be any sanctuary, though. It was just momentary peace and nothing else.

Might as well go see what awaited them, eh?

Sunstreaker nodded and they got up, walking to the doorless doorframe and through it into the spacious common area. It was probably safe to assume that anyone who wasn’t a guard in their distinct brown and white paint job was a carrier instead, so… Two were watching something on the entertainment center, one was dancing to music probably streamed straight into his audials, three were playing a card game of some sort, and two others were chatting with the guard stationed by the main doors. Coil was nowhere to be seen, but–

The other guard that seemed to have the task of _mingling_ approached them. “Washed and fueled?” he asked, his voice smooth and _friendly._

Everyone here was so _friendly._ It put them on edge, Sunstreaker even more than Sideswipe. Maybe it was just because they weren’t used to it, but frag, it just felt _off._

Sideswipe nodded regardless, and the guard continued with a question, “Up for getting your medical checkup done next?”

Did they have anything better to do? Plus, it’d be nice as heck to get some _proper_ medical care that he assumed would be available here, instead of just the medical training rejects they were used to. Maybe they’d actually get their slag fixed.

That in mind Sideswipe responded with a simple, “Sure.” Why not?

The guard nodded at them and gestured for them to come along, which they did, following him through the common area and to the main doors that opened for them. The guard by the doors didn’t show any signs of moving, but there was another guard waiting in the hallway on the other side, and he joined them on their way to the medical bay. Up that one ramp, down the corridor they hadn’t gone yet, and then there was a door with a bright medical bay on the other side.

It looked like it had damn near everything, which… Made sense, if you assumed they were never supposed to _leave_ the House. Not even for medical reasons, apparently.

Gah.

A medic looked up as they entered, straightening from whatever he had been working on by one of the tables, a datapad next to him. The one they presumed all of their medical info and test results had been uploaded to by the medic that had initially tested them? Could be.

“Come on in and find a berth for yourself,” they were instructed, and after a cautious look around the room, the twins walked to two berths placed right next to each other.

No one looked surprised. “I’m Cauter, one of the medics that will be taking care of you,” the mech introduced himself as he came closer. They could feel scans on them and by Cauter’s frown, the readings weren’t too impressive. “Well, I’ve got my work cut out for me with you two. Do you have a preference on which of you I’ll do first?”

“Do him,” they both stated at the same time, then shared a glare, and it would have become an argument if Cauter hadn’t huffed and interjected before they could get going.

“Alright, alright, I’ll do you first, Sideswipe. Just because you’re closer to me right now…”

Well, that was one way to decide that. Sunstreaker smirked, Sideswipe grumbled, but laid down on the berth all the way and let Cauter get to work. “Would you prefer I put you into stasis? I’m not kidding, this will take a while. Chances are you’ll get bored.”

“We’re fine online,” Sunstreaker said. Mostly just because they didn’t yet trust this whole thing one bit. They’d be completely defenseless if they were knocked out entirely. No thanks on that.

“Very well. If at any point you change your minds, say.”

With that Cauter began to remove… A hell of a lot of his armor, and moving what felt like most of his protoform plating out of the way to get to his internals. There was welding involved, parts that were entirely replaced, things that were tightened or loosened and wiggled around to what he assumed was their right positions, more parts taken out and replaced with fresh ones… There was a lot. A lot a lot.

But considering they hadn’t had proper medical care at any point of the short while they had existed, that wasn’t too surprising. 

And it took a long ass time, that wasn’t a lie either. The two guards stayed stationed in the room and Sideswipe admired them for apparently never losing their focus, because he sure as pit was starting to lose the aim of his attention out of sheer boredom, browsing around his systems just for something to do. They’d been warned of this, but.

Sunstreaker wasn’t doing much better, but he at least tried to keep his focus on the repairs done on Sideswipe, just in case there was something that wasn’t supposed to happen.

And… There was. After taking who knew how many readings of his spark, Cauter _lifted_ his entire spark chamber a little bit. That sure felt hella uncomfortable and extremely _worrisome,_ well enough to definitely get the instantaneous attention of the both of them. “Whoa, whoa, hey!” Sideswipe knew better than try to get up or even swat the medic’s servos away at this point, but, “The pit you’re doing?!”

“Installing a tracker. Standard procedure,” Cauter responded simply, and indeed slipped something _behind_ his spark chamber where he was sure to never reach it on his own, or really, not without help from someone who actually knew what they were doing. 

Sideswipe let his helm fall back to the berth’s surface, staring at the ceiling and once again getting reminded that they didn’t really belong to _themselves_ anymore. Even if by some miracle they got out, a tracker they couldn’t remove and most likely wouldn’t know how to turn off would make sure they didn’t get far.

It was a stupid reason to cry, but Sideswipe had to blink away tears anyway, gritting his denta. _Rest of their lives, ideally._ They seemed pretty damn serious about making that an unavoidable reality. What kind of a miracle would they need if they wanted to escape that fate? Was there _anything?_

He was an optimist, but this whole system had been in place for such a long ass time that it was hard to believe _they_ could rock the boat to their own benefit.

The tracker was installed, his spark chamber secured back to its rightful place, and for all the hours all of that had taken, Cauter seemed to be on the home stretch. Sideswipe’s protoform plating was the next to get fixed, which was mostly just installing new pieces of it to replace damaged ones. Then was the turn of his actual armor, which, again, saw quite a few pieces swapped out to blank grey ones.

Then he was done.

Except he _wasn’t._ “I’ll replace your claws and fangs next,” Cauter said so _casually,_ but with nothing keeping him down once the medic walked away, Sideswipe shot to sitting, alarm blaring in their spark.

“Wait, what? Replace them with what?!” he asked, voice a little too high and tight for his liking. Sunstreaker was revving and would have jumped off his berth if the guards hadn’t chosen that moment to step closer, towering over them.

It was a warning, they weren’t blind to that. If they didn’t behave, they would be _made_ to behave.

“Blunt versions,” Cauter answered him just as easily.

“No!” Sideswipe said right away, trying to get up off the berth entirely, but the guard next to him pushed him right back down. He snarled, flashing his denta— _sharp_ denta—and didn’t resist the urge to dig his _claws_ into the guard’s wrist to try to get him _off of him._

Except he probably should have resisted that whim, because the guard merely raised one optical ridge at him. Sideswipe understood that well enough.

 _This_ was why they wanted to replace them.

Didn’t make him any more fine with it. 

“Stay the slag away from me!” he growled when Cauter returned to him, twisting against the guard’s hold, but it was solid. He couldn’t say he was surprised. They had to be _trained_ just for this. 

Sunstreaker was cussing too, but the other guard kept him from intervening any. Anger was ricocheting in their spark, along with a desperate sort of _fear._

Was there anything they could do to avoid any of this? Getting stripped of everything they could use to defend themselves with, just because they didn’t want them defending against the _wrong_ mecha?

He vented hard when Cauter came next to him, but the medic didn’t try to touch him right away, just looked at his claws, then at his face.

Sideswipe snapped his denta at him in threat, his engine revving hard. 

“I apologize, but this is necessary,” Cauter said, and… Now that he thought about it, all the carriers he’d seen were just…

He hadn’t seen claws, but more than that, he hadn’t even seen sharp edges. _Anywhere_ on their frames, despite sharp pieces of armor being a basic building block of the Kaonite aesthetic.

They were no exceptions. They had plenty of sharp points on their frames, from their helms to their knees. They looked _Kaonite._

_How had he missed the fact that none of the other carriers did?_

It wasn’t just about their claws, or their fangs.

It was about _every_ edge on them.

“No..!” Sideswipe still tried to deny, shaking his helm. There was a tremble in his armor now that he didn’t like one bit. He tried to kick at the guard, tried to pull or tear himself free– For what? Where would he go? He was stuck here, in the House, and probably in the med bay specifically now. The door had to be locked.

But just laying there and taking it didn’t feel like much of an option either.

“Don’t fragging touch him!” Sunstreaker growled, but the other guard had him all but entirely neutralized. That didn’t make his brother struggle any less, and _gouges_ were appearing on the guard, left on him by the very claws they were threatening to relieve them of. 

“Will you calm down?” Cauter asked evenly, glancing between them. Sunstreaker snarled at him, Sideswipe tried to kick at _him_ this time. Cauter moved out of the way just in time, and _sighed_ —right before fetching something from his subspace. A chip of some sort.

The guard on Sideswipe forced his helm to the side, baring the _for now_ closed medical ports at the back of his helmet. Sideswipe struggled twice as hard, or thought he did, but it didn’t do him any good. His engine whined this time, desperation mounting as Cauter opened the little panel and he could feel him slotting the chip into one of the ports.

A cloud settled over his mind immediately and his servos fell from the guard’s arm that he’d scratched up pretty badly by now. Really, all of his frame went lax. He felt like he could have still moved if he _really_ tried, but it was so fragging hard that he didn’t manage to do more than slide his pede and arm across the berth’s surface. Lifting any part of him was too much work.

He panted. Sunstreaker was practically roaring, up until the same move was repeated on him and the sedative rushed through his body as well. His struggles died down just as abruptly, and he was simply placed to lay on the berth.

But muddled as his thoughts were, as disconnected from his frame as he _felt…_ It wasn’t that he was completely unaware of things. He could still feel it when Cauter caught one of his servos and removed the last third of the armor over each digit—the claw. 

He was perfectly aware of it when the medic plugged into him, tilted his helm back, forced his mouth open, used medical overrides to disconnect his denta, and pulled out all four of his fangs. 

He almost wished he was senseless to it all, to the way Cauter slotted in new denta that fit in perfectly but that he could never properly harm anyone with… To the fact armor was replaced onto his digits, except now there were no sharp points to them, no cutting edges.

Cauter moved onto Sunstreaker once that was done, leaving Sideswipe staring at the ceiling with none of the wherewithal to move his helm to watch what was done to his twin. All he could do was _feel_ as the hurts and aches in Sunstreaker’s frame were removed one by one as was done to Sideswipe, that it took just as long… But that was alright.

What wasn’t alright was what followed. Sunstreaker was relieved of his claws and the sets of three fangs at each of the four corners of his mouth, those too replaced with something entirely harmless.

And it didn’t end there. If only it had, but they had gotten themselves equipped with Pit fighting in mind in their latest round of upgrades. Dangerous points strong enough to be used to _harm_ others—Sunstreaker had impaled mecha on his _knees_ before; Sideswipe had rather successfully stabbed others when jamming his elbow into them. They had weaponized themselves. 

Now all of that was undone. Cauter either entirely replaced some armor pieces with blunt ones, or simply detached the piece, cut away the sharp points, welded them back into shape, then reattached them. Methodically he performed the same procedure on both of them, with neither in a position to resist any more than the other.

Tears had been running from the corners of Sideswipe’s optics for quite a while now, and yet he couldn’t do more than _feel_ and _hear_ all of it happening, only sometimes catching a sight of Cauter as he moved around him—them. The guards continued to stand by.

He hated them. All of them, for doing this to them, forcing this on them. It wasn’t enough to take their freedom, lock them up. They had to alter them for their _new role_ on top of it all, so they could play the right part in the right way.

Carriers were feeble things that simply _allowed_ everything that happened to them. Wasn’t that the general view of them? _Public servants_ to the high cause of keeping their species’ numbers up? Hardly even individuals with their own volitions? Just _breeders,_ and that was the beginning and the end to the reason for their existence?

Anger was a quick thing to take root, saturating their fields and the room.

No one responded to it. Cauter kept working, the guards kept watch. Nothing changed.

It was so impotent. They were in such a poor position to fight any of it. They were in _no_ position to fight it. 

He felt like trying anyway, as soon as he could. _Slag them._ Slag all of them.

This wasn’t _right._

“And that’s that,” Cauter said through the haze on their processors, attaching one final piece of armor on Sunstreaker’s shoulder. “You’re both in good repair and your spark is as strong and healthy as it’ll get. You’ll do fine.”

Sideswipe willed his optics to direct his vision at the medic just as he nodded at the guards, who stepped up to each of them, and picked their unnaturally relaxed frames off their respective berths. 

Then they left the medbay and its medic behind. Sideswipe tried to focus as they were carried down the ramp, through the two spacious hallways, into the House’s living area… Up a ramp to the second floor, to door twenty-two, then inside where they were carefully placed on the berth that was supposedly _theirs._

The chips were removed from the both of them, but the effects of the sedation weren’t as quick to clear as he’d hoped. He could twitch his limbs properly now, but before he found it in himself to do more than that, the guards had already left the room, robbing him of the chance to yell at them and… Whatever else he wanted to do to them, or _try_ to do to them. There was a lot.

A big round of air gushed from Sunstreaker’s vents next to him and with far too much effort Sideswipe turned his helm to the side to look at him. His brother was staring at the ceiling, his optics quickly beginning to spark with unadulterated _fury_ as he got more of his faculties back. Sideswipe could relate, but… Frag, it hurt, it _hurt_ to see the state they’d left Sunstreaker’s frame in. There were blank pieces of armor everywhere, lacking his rightful colors, but that could be fixed easily enough if they got their hands on some paint.

What they couldn’t fix was _everything else._ Cauter had even filed down the sharp tips of his helm fins, and Sideswipe knew the same had been done to his horns. Sunstreaker’s shoulders were near round now; he knew his own were the same. Gone were the sharp points on his arms too, his knees, and Sideswipe could feel the same was true to him, as if he hadn’t known as much already. 

There was nothing dangerous about their frames anymore, aside from their raw skill. They should probably count themselves lucky they hadn’t capped the output of their engines and stripped them of their strength too. Was that something they could still do, if they were difficult enough?

How far would the House go to force them into all this?

Sideswipe pulled in an uneven, sharp invent, and quickly turned his helm away, directing his optics back to the ceiling. It didn’t help any. The tears still came. His spark felt fit to burst from the emotion in it, almost all of it negative. They had no rights to themselves anymore, that much was clear.

And they were expected to just lay down and take it all.

His servo was grasped, Sunstreaker squeezing his digits. Sideswipe cried harder when he couldn’t feel the familiar scratch of his twin’s claws. He could feel Sunstreaker shaking, but he wasn’t… Sad, the same way Sideswipe was.

He was just angry. So angry. And yet he knew he could do little with that anger, which only made him angrier. 

At least their control over their own frames was growing as the aftereffects of the sedative were steadily cleared from their systems. It wasn’t long before Sideswipe could roll to his brother’s side, practically burrowing against his plating. Sunstreaker weaseled an arm around his shoulders, pulling him even closer. No complaints about that. 

He would have asked what they were going to do, but he knew Sunstreaker didn’t have any better idea than he’d had the last time he had asked that. 

This was their life now. This was every carrier’s life. What could they do?

 _What the pit could they do?_ Did they think themselves so special that _they_ could somehow escape this? Despite the all day, all night guards, locked doors, trackers? And now, despite their _looks_ too?

Frag. How the pit had they been so hapless? And yet, it wasn’t as if they were the only ones in this very situation. There were other breeders in this House. There were other Houses. All across Cybertron, there were other Houses, where they did the exact same thing to every carrier, new and old.

It was just how things went.

 _Why do anything about a thing that already worked?_ What did it matter that they paid for the system with their lives, as long as Cybertron got its newsparks? They’d been on the other side. They’d been the common mech that just didn’t understand, or didn’t _care._ It wasn’t happening to _them,_ after all. _They_ couldn’t carry, so why waste thought on those that _could,_ beyond how you could use them to your advantage most efficiently?

This was what carriers did. Life had handed its cards to them, and this was the hand they’d gotten.

_So stop whining about it._

“We should recharge,” Sunstreaker murmured to him. It was well into the night cycle anyway with how long their repairs and _edits_ had taken. He couldn’t believe… Couldn’t believe they’d started the day as free mecha. With only the Pits as their future, but _free._ Forgettable. The type no one gave a slag about. If they were found dead in a ditch, no one would bat an eye. 

Look how their day ended. Everything had changed in such a flash. Just… Turned into the polar opposite.

Why did it need to go like that?

“Yeah,” Sideswipe whispered back, turning his helm to press his face more firmly against Sunstreaker’s violated plating. Recharge, defrag… It wouldn’t change anything, but maybe they would feel a little better in the morning.

A little more ready to face it all.


End file.
